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The First Weeklong Technical Writers' Institute and Its Impact

Rensselaer’s Technical Writers' Institute, the first program of its kind, had a profound impact on technical communication. It enabled technical communicators without formal education in the field to gain important knowledge, provided a forum for communicators from different industries to meet in order to solve mutual problems, played a key role in defining the field and its needs, encouraged recruitment (including the hiring of more women), promoted professional societies and formal degree programs, and seriously affected industry training programs by enabling them to use institute teaching materials. Knowledge gained through the Technical Writers' Institute enabled Rensselaer to develop many other innovations.

School Standards That Support Technical Writing

The value of learning effective nonfiction nonnarrative writing ("technical writing") for middle- and high-school students has been cited repeatedly in official and unofficial academic standards starting in the early 1990s.

Teaching Intercultural Communication in a Basic Technical Writing Course: A Survey of Our Current Practices and Methods

This research article reports the results of an online survey distributed among technical writing instructors in 2006. The survey aimed to examine how we teach intercultural communication in basic technical writing courses: our current practices and methods. The article discusses three major challenges that instructors may face when teaching about intercultural communication. These challenges concern teacher preparation, time and proposed goals and objectives, and teaching materials and methods. This article provides some suggestions for addressing the challenges and enriching a technical writing curriculum.

Introducing Heuristics of Cultural Dimensions into the Service-Level Technical Communication Classroom

A significant problem for practitioners of technical communication is to gain the skills to compete in a global, multicultural work environment. Instructors of technical communication can provide future practitioners with the tools to compete and excel in this global environment by introducing heuristics of cultural dimensions into the service-level classroom. By practicing how to use these heuristics in "real-world" contexts, instructors can prepare students to function as both information architects and symbolic-analytic operators within this global work environment. In this article, I first examine common cultural heuristics as they pertain to business communication. Next, I articulate how technical communicators can benefit from incorporating these heuristics into the classroom. Finally, I offer a pedagogical approach to introducing heuristics of cultural dimensions into the service-level technical communication classroom.

Reinventing the (Professional Writing) Major

I have been dwelling for some time with ideas for rethinking the professional writing major in response to phenomena that aren’t going away, such as the inadequacy of the university for life-long learning and the unsustainable way that public education is funded.

Toward a Post-Technê: Or, Inventing Pedagogies for Professional Writing

This article examines the concept of technê in relation to situatedness. Technê is conceived as techniques for situating bodies in contexts. Although many theorists and practitioners in technical communication are working from ecological and posthuman perspectives with regard to interface designs, this article argues for extending those perspectives to workplace and classroom situations. Starting from a Heideggerian reading of technê, the article moves toward the concept of post-technê, which remakes pedagogical techniques for writing and inventing in institutional contexts.

How a Teacher Reminded Me Why I’m a Writer

I enjoy creating content. I like to take words and arrange them to convey ideas, paint pictures, spur thought, and give guidance. I like thinking about what arrangement of the words will bring the best impact. I write not necessarily because the world turns on ideas or because information is a buyable product, but because words have a lasting effect on people.

Teaching Intercultural Communication in a Basic Technical Writing Course: A Survey of Our Current Practices and Methods

Contextualize Technical Writing Assessment to Better Prepare Students for Workplace Writing: Student-Centered Assessment Instruments

To teach students how to write for the workplace and other professional contexts, technical writing teachers often assign writing tasks that reflect real-life communication contexts, a teaching approach that is grounded in the field's contextualized understanding of genre. This article argues to fully embrace contextualized literacy and better teach workplace writing, technical writing teachers also need to contextualize how they assess student writing. To this end, this article examines some of workplaces' best assessment practices and critically integrates them into an introductory technical writing classroom through a method called student-centered assessment instruments. This method engages students, as workplaces engage employees, in the assessment process to identify local requirements for writing tasks. Aligned with theory and practice, this method is not only an effective classroom assessment method, but becomes an integrated part of students' genre-learning process within and beyond the classroom.

Making Connections: Teaching Writing to Engineers and Technical Writers in a Multicultural Environment

Teaching writing to engineering students representing Indian, Middle Eastern, Asian, and American cultures can be daunting as their cultural perceptions of time, gender, source of authority, individualism and risk taking, affect learning styles. However, despite cultural differences, many International students have no difficulty with much of American instruction and, in some cases, perform better than American students. Their ability to adapt to American instruction appears to depend primarily on the educational goals of their cultures.

Using Humor in the Technical Writing Classroom

Humor in the classroom is about engagement and involvement. Learn some new techniques to use and when to tread carefully.

The Writer as Trainer: How to Transfer Your Skills and Empower Others Without Losing Your Job

Technical writing may be seen as a marginal activity without clear economic benefit to an organization. Yet writing and editing can be tied to an organization's bottom line. Writers can use training and other interventions to demonstrate their own effectiveness. Such interventions can raise the efficiency with which their organizations produce documents and improve the quality of the documents themselves. Customer-oriented organizations will be most receptive to these interventions, but even unreceptive organizations can change their practices. Successful interventions require working with others and will mean added responsibilities for the writer.

Producing Brochures in the Technical Writing Classroom

Producing brochures for real clients teaches college-level technical writing students about constraints of cost, time, and the availability of materials. Brochure writing also provides opportunities for learning more about editing, collaborative work, document design, and the problems which may occur during the production of real documents. Brochures of good quality can be produced by a class in approximately three weeks, or nine classroom hours. Grading brochures is expedited through the use of a simple heuristic.

Dirty Battles in the Trench: Is It Wise to Use Real Materials for Editing in a Technical Writing Class?

The use of real materials in a technical writing class involves both advantages and drawbacks. Use of real materials makes the class relate well to the work environment, improves self-esteem, critical thinking, and student motivation. Drawbacks include the problem of finding materials, a lack of course continuity, a lessening of use of the class text, and legal implications. Overall, the use of real materials for classroom editing is recommended.

A Simple Recipe to Help Build a Goal-Oriented Training Program for Your Department

Addressing a department's learning requirements is a tough call because of the different levels of complexities and challenges involved. With learning requirements poorly understood and sometimes even out of sync with department goals, a majority of training programs fail to achieve any major business objectives. What you need is the right approach to develop, monitor and standardize a cost-effective, people and result-oriented training program that works magic for you and your department.

On Teaching Technical/Business Writing

Whether one teaches business communication or technical writing (or some amalgam of the two), the first statements an instructor makes in class should be to apprise students that the course upon which they are embarking is but a specialty within a larger field of writing, that their courses in English composition, philosophy and survey of literature (and the papers written for those courses) will all apply to the specialized communication field they now must address.

The Technical Writing Machine: A Model for Teaching Writers How to Develop Troubleshooting Procedures

A hypothetical 'technical writing machine' was created as an aid in teaching writers how to develop troubleshooting procedures. Students use a schematic diagram of the 'machine' to determine possible faults and their causes. They learn to consider factors such as reliability and support equipment requirements as they determine a fault isolation strategy and presentation format. The 'machine' eliminates the need for students to have specific system technical knowledge and allows them to concentrate on the techniques of writing troubleshooting procedures.

Tips for Writers Who Have to Teach a Writing Class

Even the most confident writers may panic when they are asked to teach a writing class for their company. Ensure success with this basic tenet of adult education: Teach what the learners want to know. The second tenet follows: Don't teach any more than the learners need to know. Focus on three to five writing problems you see within your company. Use a 'teach and do' method: Teach a topic, such as passive voice, then do an exercise to practice what you have just taught. Adults like hands-on writing experience, and they like to work as teams to analyze problematic writing. Provide handouts that participants can use later, and include resources for future reference. Get evaluations from the participants so that you can improve with each subsequent workshop. And don't forget to order the donuts!

Preparing to Teach Technical Writing

To teach technical writing effectively, technical writing teachers should know enough about their students' fields to understand what their students write and help them learn how to write appropriately for non-academic audiences. This paper discusses the need for additional preparation to teach technical writing. It presents the results of an informal survey of science and business faculty, identifying resources teachers can use to learn basic concepts in science and business. Also, the paper considers the value of such a survey in developing writing assignments and rapport with faculty whose majors take technical writing courses.

Teaching Engineering Communication: A Novel Vertically-Integrated and Discipline-Conscious Curriculum

The demands of former students, of industry, and of the accreditation board have prompted the engineering education community to investigate the integration of communication proficiencies into the four-year engineering curriculum. While much literature has been devoted to this task in the last several years, the engineering communication programs at most institutions can be described as employing either a peripheral or diffuse model to offer technical communication instruction. Each of these models is problematic. This article describes a novel 'hybrid' engineering communication education model under development at NC State University that is vertically integrated and discipline conscious.

Teaching Web Design in the Technical Writing Service Course: Steps Toward a Planned Evolution

This study uses an online survey of technical communication educators to examine trends in the technical writing service course with regard to web design. Participants for the study were representatives of programs in technical communication in four-year institutions of higher education throughout the United States. The study contributes to research into the function of the technical writing service course in the current technological climate. Identifying trends is one component in an evaluation that will aid effective evolution of this significant course.

Classical Rhetoric and Technical Writing

English departments, eager to boost enrollment, may press teachers into duty teaching technical writing courses on short notice and with little preparation.

Technical Writing in College, Industry, and Government (The Junior College Program)

Recommends in-service training programs, including summer institutes and monthly workshops, to teach technical writing techniques to literature-trained English teachers who have plunged into unknown waters.

The Impact of Student Learning Outcomes Assessment on Technical and Professional Communication Programs

Because of accreditation, budget, and accountability pressures at the institutional and program levels, technical and professional communication faculty are more than ever involved in assessment-based activities. Using assessment to identify a program's strengths and weaknesses allows faculty to work toward continuous improvement based on their articulation of learning and behavioral goals and outcomes for their graduates. This article describes the processes of program assessment based on pedagogical goals, pointing out options and opportunities that will lead to a meaningful and manageable experience for technical communication faculty, and concludes with a view of how the larger academic body of technical communication programs can benefit from such work. As ATTW members take a careful look at the state of the profession from the academic perspective, we can use assessment to further direct our programs to meet professional expectations and, far more importantly, to help us meet the needs of the well-educated technical communicator.

Teaching Business and Technical Writing in China: Confronting Assumptions and Practices at Home and Abroad

In light of growing interest in technical communication around the world, cross-cultural teaching opportunities may challenge basic assumptions about teaching and learning for both teachers and students. A faculty-development project in the People's Republic of China illustrates various ways facilities, educational practices, and worldviews from each side of the exchange require significant compromise. A negotiated, student-centered classroom environment may be a significant strategy for instruction in such settings.

Drawing on Technical Writing Scholarship for the Teaching Of Writing to Advanced ESL Students--A Writing Tutorial

The article outlines the technical writing tutorial (TWT) that preceded an advanced ESL writing course for students of English Philology at the Jagiellonian University. Having assessed the English skills of those students at the end of the semester, we found a statistically significant increase in the performance of the students who had taken the TWT in comparison to the control group who spent the time of TWT doing more traditional exercises. This result indicates that technical writing books and journals should be considered as an important source of information for teachers of writing to ESL students.

The Great Instauration: Restoring Professional and Technical Writing to the Humanities

If you wish to start an undergraduate professional and technical writing program at a small liberal arts college, you will find good arguments for your project in the educational writings of Sir Francis Bacon. Unlike other Renaissance Humanists, Bacon located the New Learning (what we now call the humanities) within the related contexts of scientific discovery and invention and professional training and development. His treatise, The Advancement of Learning, proposes to draw knowledge from and apply knowledge to the natural and social world. Bacon's curricular ideas can benefit emerging PTW programs in the humanities in three ways: They make a convincing apologia for most English departments and writing programs, wed humanistic education to public service, and provide a rich but practical theoretical framework for program development and administration.

Service Learning in the Introductory Technical Writing Class: A Perfect Match?

Teachers at all levels of college instruction use service learning, a popular pedagogical tool since the mid-eighties, to teach students both social consciousness and pragmatic, real-world writing skills. This article explores the concept of service learning as rhetorical action in the field of technical communication in general, and the question of whether service learning is appropriate in beginning level technical writing courses. Using my experience through two years of service learning instruction in community college classes, I respond to the charge that students in lower-division courses may lack the maturity to successfully enact service learning assignments. I also analyze the appropriateness of the community college as a catalyst for community-based writing projects.

Teaching Technical Writing Through Student Peer-Evaluation

Individual students in two different sections of an undergraduate civil engineering laboratory were tasked with preparing three professional-quality laboratory reports. The teaching assistant and/or instructor used established criteria to grade the first two reports prepared by students in one section. The first two reports prepared by students in the other section were peer evaluated by assigned fellow students within the same laboratory section using identical grading criteria. The peer evaluated section had a higher class average than the teaching assistant/instructor graded section on the fist two reports. The third report prepared by students from both sections was graded by a professional educator/architect without knowledge of a student's class section. The peer evaluation students also had a higher class average on the third report, suggesting that the peer evaluation process may have positively contributed to those students' writing skills.

What Technical Writing Students Should Know About Typeface Personality

Typeface personality impacts the rhetorical effect of students' documents, yet it receives little attention in textbooks. Technical writing students should stand the definition of "appropriate" in relation to typeface selection, the difference between type's functional and semantic properties, the difference between type family and personality, the effect of a typeface's history, and the contribution of a typeface's anatomy to its personality. Understanding these, students can make informed decisions about typeface appropriateness.

The Lone Ranger as Technical Writing Program Administrator

The popularity of technical writing and communication has caused many colleges and universities to scramble to hire qualified tenure-track faculty members. So-called lone ranger candidates are often lured to workplaces in which they are the sole technical writing faculty members by promises of autonomy and the ability to develop programs in ways, and at a pace, that would not necessarily be possible at other institutions. This article explores challenges faced by several such lone ranger faculty members and outlines survival strategies that may help lone rangers sustain and build their technical writing programs.

Toward a Post-Techne-Or, Inventing Pedagogies for Professional Writing

This article examines the concept of techne in relation to situatedness. Techne is conceived as techniques for situating bodies in contexts. Although many theorists and practitioners in technical communication are working from ecological and posthuman perspectives with regard to interface designs, this article argues for extending those perspectives to workplace and classroom situations. Starting from a Heideggerian reading of techne, the article moves toward the concept of post-techne, which remakes pedagogical techniques for writing and inventing in institutional contexts.

Technical Writing Part Five: Education

Education and skills development are vital to a technical writing career. While there are no set-in-stone educational requirements for a technical writer, there are very few writers in the field who do not have a college degree.

A Survey of Technical Writing Practitioners and Professors: Are We on the Same Page?

Do technical writing professors teach what practitioners practice? Do practitioners practice what professors preach? We surveyed writers and teachers nationwide, asking each group to rate the importance of types of writing, writing skills, electronic communications, computer usage, and nonwriting topics, such as oral presentations and graphics. Teachers and writers agree that ethics, revision, and document design are important. However, writers focus on manuals, whereas professors teach reports and resumes. Writers emphasize grammar, punctuation, hypertext, and total quality management, whereas teachers emphasize passive voice and personalization. The two groups differ often and significantly.

Beyond Internationalization: Multicultural Education in the Professional Writing Contact Zone

To bridge the gap between composition and professional communication studies, we should add multiculturalism to the widely accepted international perspective in professional communication instruction, thus transforming the classroom into a contact zone (Pratt). The practical necessity of intercultural communication in a global marketplace necessitates internationalization. The international perspective, accounting for the heterogeneity of the technical communication audience, focuses on audience analysis and leads us to encourage students to learn about the multiple, cultural layers of audience. A multicultural perspective, however, can teach students of professional communication about the complex relationship between language and ideology and the underlying forces that shape and reflect the ways we use language. Multiculturalism's critical component provides insights into the structures and ideologies of domination/subordination and provides students with the linguistic, intellectual, and moral tools for resisting fear and prejudices. Likewise, the international perspective in professional communication can inform issues of audience analysis in composition.

Discovering the Pedagogical Paradigm Shift in Technical Writing

For my dissertation, I am analyzing technical writing textbooks from the early 1900s to the present to determine whether technical writing pedagogy has undergone or is undergoing a paradigm shift. When I began this study, my hypothesis was that technical writing pedagogy, like composition and rhetoric pedagogy, has shifted from the product orientation to the process orientation. Textbooks that are product oriented emphasize the study of examples or models, and textbooks that are process oriented emphasize the study of the writing process. Now that I have completed my study and am in the process of analyzing the results, my hypothesis is that technical writing pedagogy shifted from a product orientation to a combined product and process orientation.

Strategies for Teaching Online Documentation

This workshop outlines the rationale for teaching college courses in online documentation, issues to consider, suggests a strategy for teaching the course (including topic sequence, exercises, and simulation), and demonstrates useful electronic resources.

Transition: Technical Writer to Technical Writing Teacher

The transition from being a technical writer to becoming a Visiting Professor of Technical Communication has meant, so far, that 1) I work a whole lot more, and 2) I finally have a chance to see the effect of the things that we create on the user. My students have helped me to do this.

Composing Organically With Reader Engagement: The CORE Method

The CORE method of teaching technical writing begins with a short core document and builds up from there. The method follows advances in writing technology and pedagogy, realizing the advantages of computer-assisted writing as well as the 'process' approach to teaching composition. The workshop creates opportunities for participants to evaluate the CORE method and apply it to their own teaching or training tasks.

More on Education for Technical Communicators

For most readers of TC-Forum, technical communication is an activity undertaken by dedicated technical communicators, for whom writing, editing, illustrating, or page-making is their chosen vocation. Yet there is also a much larger community for whom technical communication is only a secondary activity, although it remains an essential part of their work.

Reviving Technical Writing at a Liberal Arts College: Writing a "Non-Technical" Technical Writing Course Description

I am asking my program to incorporate more of the liberal arts into the course's title and course description to better appeal to (and serve) students in a liberal arts college. The course will have one or two new sophomore level iterations: as a technical/research writing course in which students complete a semester long service project, researching and writing a final report while focusing on writing, research, and mathematical skills, and/or as a technical writing/document design class where students focus on the document design and writing skills needed to produce items such as a resume, flyers, brochures, posters, and more.

"Who are You, and What is It You Do Again?": Struggling for Identity in Small Technical Communication Programs

Technical writing faculty who work in solo situations are often seen as the 'other' in their home departments, whether we are housed with literature, business, or engineering faculty. We are thus inscribed in a unique border location, and consequently are further inscribed in a peripheral location within the greater technical writing academy.

English Department Service Courses

The service curricula in this survey include institution-wide general education courses, English courses required in addition to institution-wide general education courses for preprofessional students (those pursuing four-year or longer non-arts and sciences degrees), and other specialized preprofessional English courses, such as technical writing.

English Professors as Technical Writers: Experience is The Best Teacher

The future of the English curriculum is being argued and discussed in academic settings across the country. Students, more and more, seek courses of study that will lead directly to jobs. The buzzword is 'relevance.' The bottom line is 'big bucks.'

How To Find a Career Adviser for Your Undergraduate Majors

If your faculty thinks it is not the place of a liberal arts school to get involved in anything 'vocational,' not the role of an English department to counsel students about job seeking, and not the job of a faculty member to learn about career planning, then the student probably cannot get an answer to the question. Chances are you and your department do not really comprehend the significant practical impact of this discipline even though it is your life's work.

Technical Writing Textbooks: Current Alternatives In Teaching

The textbook one chooses for a technical writing course will contribute a definition of the subject, whether implicit or explicit, but the definition and scope of what is loosely called technical writing are by no means agreed

Current Status Of Business And Technical Writing Courses In English Departments

We have heard a great deal of talk in recent years about the growth of business and technical writing courses in English departments. But very little, if any, factual information exists on how much enrollments have grown and whether they are expected to grow in the near future. Furthermore, no study has attempted to assess the impact these relatively new, rapidly expanding courses are having and will continue to have on English departments and their faculty members.

An Instructor Internship In Technical Writing

We cause ourselves problems by not knowing what our counterparts in industry are doing. In my case, I taught the textbook in my first business and technical writing courses at Indiana University East, Richmond.

Training for Wannabe Technical Writers

'More technical writers. Better technical writers.' This is the mantra I have in mind while I write this column.

The Place of Communication in Technical Writing Programs

The Modern Language Association recently outlined numerous changes in English Studies, citing the significant growth of jobs in technical and professional communication. Since 1997, thenumber of academic positions advertised in our field has increased by 76 percent. The reasons are simple: the job market for capable communicators has expanded (primarily due to technology), andmore and more students want a major or minor that provides the knowledge and skills necessary to meetthe increased demand. Many English departments, including our own (Virginia Tech and University of Nebraska at Omaha [UNO], are responding to students’ needs by hiring faculty to build programs inprofessional/technical communication.

Rethinking the Evaluation of Writing in Engineering Courses

The objective of this paper is to bring about a reevaluation of writing assessment practices in engineering classes. The authors begin by drawing rhetoric (the knowledge base of effective technical communication) and engineering together, explaining how engineering work is rhetorical. From this theoretical vantage point, the authors argue for a change in engineering writing assessment practices. Specifically, they argue for an approach that favors formative assessment (focused on writing comments that lead to both better writing and better engineering) over summative assessment (which sees writing ability as separate from engineering design). The authors continue by revealing a scoring guide for the formative assessment of engineering reports, and detailing the process by which such a scoring guide may be created. Each criterion in the scoring guide is explained in terms of the rhetorical and engineering principles that it simultaneously addresses.

Portrait of a Maturing Department

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock's Department of Rhetoric and Writing has been an independent department since 1993. When we left the English Department, the writing programs -- composition, the shared B.A. program in Professional and Technical Writing, and the M.A. program in Technical and Expository Writing -- naturally came with us. What we didn't have was a developmental vision of a program.

How the Web Is Changing the Role of the Service Course

The service course is undergoing another change in its role in the Technical Communication program. Over the years, the service course has evolved from a way of providing students with mastery of genre and style to a way of introducing students to their role as communicators in the rhetorical situation. The Web drives the new role evolving out of this solid past. The service course now provides students with a basis for independent creation. Programs must fill four key needs for students entering the job market. Students must: learn to learn; master the processes involved in creating information; learn applications quickly and graduate having mastered several; and understand information design.

Technical Writing Courses

In the United States, many technical writing courses and degree programs exist for hopeful writers. Technical writers in other countries are not necessarily so fortunate. I don't know why this should be so, but I am happy to say that this situation is improving; more and more universities and colleges are offering technical writing degrees and certificates. Since the number of schools offering technical writing programs changes frequently, providing a list of them here would soon cause this page to become out of date. To find out what technical writing courses are available in your area, contact your local universities and colleges. If there are no classes offered in your area, some universities and colleges provide online degree programs that you can complete from anywhere in the world. Also, many private companies provide technical writing courses. You can find these by typing "technical writing courses" at the search engines. Even if your local university or college does not offer any technical writing courses, you can take other courses that will be beneficial when you apply for a job.

Technical Writing Tutorial

Technical writing is used to report information. This is different from creative and other types of writing styles in many ways. We will discuss these later. Why is this important? As a scientist/engineer, it is important for you to be able to to be able to communicate your work to others in writing.

Teaching Documentation Writing: What Else Students--and Instructors--Should Know

Discusses knowledge, problem-solving strategies, and desktop publishing skills students need to learn about documentation writing. Describes a course that provides these skills. Also applies to in-house training programs.

Incorporating Human-Computer Interface (HCI) Technology Into the Technical Writer’s Role

At last year’s STC corlference in Seattle, Dr. Donald Norman spoke about the technical writing community becoming an integral part qf the design/development team. The HCI certificate program qfered through Renesselaer Polytechnic Institute @PI,) provides information and teaches skills that enable the technical communicator to become a valuable part of that team. This paper discusses my experience incorporating what I learned in the HCI class on a work project.

A Curriculum for a Corporate Technical Writing Department: Providing Cost-Effective, Ongoing, Quality Training

This paper develops a cost-effective, ongoing, process-oriented writing curriculum for a technical writing department. This curriculum meets the needs of adult learners and the corporation and provides training for all experience and expertise levels while also allowing writers to meet the demands of their projects.

Reflections of a GTA on the Teaching of Technical Writing

Though I have a degree in technical communication and have worked as a technical writer for four years, I still had no idea what should be taught in a technical writing classroom, or how one should go about teaching it. Before I ventured into the arena as an instructor, I wanted to find out what goes on in a technical writing classroom. Two types of practical research that I thought would provide some insight into technical writing instruction were: an observation of different technical communication classrooms; and a survey of various textbooks available for technical communication courses.

The Dual Mission of the Community College and Implications for Technical Writing Instruction

Technical writing education in the community college is complicated by the need to serve multiple populations, including traditional college students, vocational/certificate students, and community businesses. At Heartland Community College (HCC), the Corporate Education Department serves the needs of businesses by providing workshops of varying lengths and content areas. At the same time, the Writing Program and the English Department serve the needs of traditional and vocational students through writing courses in composition, technical writing, and business writing. Since each department espouses different philosophies and is addressing the needs of a different audience, technical writing instruction varies across the College. Rarely does one course design affect the other, yet I believe that conversations between departments could help the College resolve some of the contradictions that accompany its dual mission.

Developing Industrial Cases For Technical Writing on Campus

At the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, the World's Engineering Congress met and included special section, 'Division E, Engineering Education.' This division was the seed for The Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, and one paper delivered in the section was 'Training of Students in Technical Literary Work,' evidencing early concern about engineers' education in technical writing. But concern alone did not solve the problem. Two decades later Edward D. Sabine, a terminal engineer, complained that most college graduated engineers could not even write a decent letter. And in the same year F. W. Springer, a professor of electrical engineering, spoke of the need for teaching 'engineering-English.' Fifty years ago Hale Sutherland, a professor of Civil Engineering, described how Case School of Applied Science had instituted a two-course, technical writing requirement to overcome 'the engineer's ancient weakness, his inability to speak and write effectively.' One approach to solving this problem has been cooperation. Seventy years ago C. W. Park wrote an article about the cooperative program at the University of Cincinnati, in which members of the Engineering and English Departments worked together to promote better writing; obviously the idea of teaming up is hardly new. Thirty years ago The Journal of Engineering Education published another description of a cooperative effort and just five years ago devoted an entire issue to technical writing. The need for teaching engineers to write and the difficulties in accomplishing the objective even cooperatively have been recognized for almost a century; we are still grappling with the problem.

Teaching Critical Thinking in The Technical Writing Class

It is probable that the Technical Writing course provides for upperclassmen the most intensive and extensive experience with written English that they will have during their undergraduate education. Traditionally, the course has bridged the world of work and the world of school. We instructors try to prepare our students for on-the-job professional writing, and it would seem that this objective is met through the special goals of the course: writing to particular audiences, using precise language, mastering formats, and using graphics. Such observable skills are valuable: indeed, Green and Nolan indicate, in their piece in the recent 'Education' issue of Technical Communication, that the fundamental requirements of an entering technical communicator's job are writing, editing, and researching. Yet, what are we to make of the prediction that Paul V. Anderson cites in that very same issue, that the advent of more highly sophisticated computer software will eliminate up to 75 percent of the present jobs in technical communication, rendering entire categories of jobs obsolete? We must teach, then, in addition to these surface writing abilities the deep structure reasoning skills that nourish them, those skills that are highly esteemed by business, industry, and academia.

Responding to Technical Writing in an Introductory Engineering Class: The Role of Genre and Discipline

A case study of an experienced professor's comments on a design report in a first-year engineering class was conducted over the period of an academic year. When compared with the commenting styles of technical writing teachers, the engineering professor's comments were found to be highly directive, and thus at odds with the preference for facilitative comments that prevails in composition studies. However, differences in genre conventions explain much of the discrepancy.

Technical Writing in a Technological Age: Changes in the Classroom and the Workplace

Over the past decade, new media and computer technologies have permeated both the technical writing classroom and the technical writing workplace. Documents written for, and used in, these two contexts no longer include just verbal text messages and simple line art printed on standard, 20 pound white paper, as they often did in the 1970s and early 1980s. Technical writing documents today appear not just in print but in electronic form, and in electronic form these documents include multiple media such as high-resolution graphics, audio and video clips, animation sequences, and visual effects. Couple this expanded electronic form of technical writing with Internet protocols that allow for the global exchange of information, and it becomes clear that distinct challenges and opportunities exist for the field of technical writing in a technological age. What is the nature of these challenges and opportunities in the classroom and the workplace? And, what is the relationship between new media, computer technologies, and the changes currently evident in these two contexts?

Role of Technical Writers in Developing eLearning

Many companies are starting to use eLearning to train their workers, managers, customers and suppliers. Some of those companies want to use their internal technical writers or communicators to not only write the content, but also to develop the CBT or WBT.